


Where Are You

by happycookiie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Canon Divergence, Character Death, Character Death Fix, Companion Piece, Emotional Trauma, F/F, F/M, Family, Friendship, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Other, Prequel, Psychological Drama, Romance, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters, Temporary Character Death, Verbal Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7089328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycookiie/pseuds/happycookiie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haunted by guilt over abandoning Beth, Maggie suffers a horrific inner turmoil over her sister's missing status, and not even Glenn's comfort is enough to chase the monsters of what she's done away. As nights pass by, she discovers she's programmed with one lone question in regards to her sibling, and finds herself constantly wondering: "Where are you?"</p><p>(Set in the Running Blind universe, but you don't have to have read that to read this because this is set before the events of that fic, and acts essentially as a prequel/missing footage.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Can't distinguish white from black

**Author's Note:**

> Just saying now, this is gonna be awful. Like seriously, this is probably one of the most depressing things I'm going to write, mostly because, the premise of this—short, can I just clarify—multi-chaptered fic is fuckin' depressing. Written as sort of a companion piece/prequel to another fic of mine: Running Blind (you don't have to have read it to be able to read this, but if you enjoy this of course I recommend reading that too!)
> 
> Since I have too much love for the Greene sisters and I've never wrote a fic for them, I decided to go ahead and make this. It's third person POV through Maggie and Beth's intrusive narrations, and it's set after the mid season finale of season four when they all split off at fall of the prison (looking back things were so easy back then). As for pairings, I'll use the established relationships like Glenn and Maggie, but Daryl and Beth was more implied at this point in canon rather than being an actual legit pairing, so things like that will be more discrete.
> 
> The purpose of this is to show the relationship between the Greene sisters, or at least... Maggie's side more so, because of what happened in fucking Coda.
> 
> Since Running Blind follows Beth actually surviving the bullet and journeying away from Atlanta to find Team Family, it's predominantly set through her intrusive POV (as well of the few others I use), and I wanted to write something similar only with Maggie. And I feel like Maggie's behaviour in season four, at least where Beth is concerned, is so misunderstood by this fandom. So yeah, I'm gonna touch on that. (by the way I know Running Blind is written in past tense and this is in present but I'm the author and I can do what I want lmao)
> 
> I don't know why I've rambled on so much here, I'm not even intending for this fic to be very long, but I just thought I'd give you some insight if you're not familiar with my other works, and maybe encourage you to give them a read. So thanks for reading all this (if you even did) and I hope you enjoy the story.

_Where are you?_  she thinks as she lays beneath the dusty blankets on the floor of the small department store they're all holed up in.

Glenn shifts beside her and makes a sleepy murmur, then swallows thickly, brushing a hand across her stomach and lightly squeezing her hip. His eyes are closed and his breathing is even, indicating deep sleep, and Maggie smiles gently at the peaceful sight, before returning to her loudly blaring thoughts.

_Where are you?_

Ever since she'd stepped off the bus to look for Glenn and left  _her_  there, ever since she saw it driving away from behind a barricade of cars beside Bob and Sasha, ever since she'd searched and searched for Glenn, Glenn, and  _only_  Glenn . . . jaws of guilt have been snapping at her.

 _Guilt_.

At leaving her baby sister there, alone and defenceless.

 _Where are you?_  she wonders with a heart full of heavy beach stones.  _Did you get away on the bus? Who are you with now? Are you safe?_

_Did you even get out at all?_

That's the question that nags her brain daily, and what makes it ten times worse is that the answer to that question was very probably . . .  _no_.

 _No_.

Just like Daddy . . . Beth was probably dead. And Maggie knows it's her own damn fault.

She swallows the lump at the back of her throat and turns onto her side away from Glenn, leaving his hand falling from her stomach and laying on the dirty sheet they're laid on.

She stares into the flickering shadows down the store aisle she's eye-level with and feels the sting of tears prickling in her eyes.

_We all got jobs to do._

_We don't get to get upset._

She sniffs acutely and blinks any building tears away.

Her persistence and painful optimism are what brought her back to Glenn, helped them come together again, but none of that optimism was directed at Beth. And that made the guilt eat away harder. Because she'd given up on her little sister, left her for dead, and buried her in the deepest, darkest corners of her mind because she just couldn't face the images of blonde braids and soft singing that always came back to haunt her. Couldn't face the never judgemental or blaming smile her little sister flashed at her through eyes brimming with tears, her bright yellow sundress muddy from falling over and her knees red and scabbed.

But even so . . . She still wondered.

_Where are you?_

.

.

Beth likes to look up at the stars from her perch on the log beside the fire Daryl is trying to stoke.

She likes to watch the crowded cluster of distant stars shining down their light onto the earth below, because it reminds her of when she and Maggie used to do the very same back home. Daryl grunts with annoyance when he can't generate enough spark to set the logs alight and Beth shifts her gaze to him momentarily to see him get down on his hands and knees to try blowing into the pile of wood. He makes more progress doing that, and smoke rises from the heart of the pile, and before long there are tiny orange embers burning through the logs and rising up to try touch the vast night sky.

She smiles and tilts her head up again, watching the speckled white constellations, and remembers life on the farm before the turn.

She and Maggie used to love doing this, used to purposely make time for it, even during their busy schedules. They used to do it first when they were very little – Maggie barely eleven, and Beth only a young toddler. They would lay on the grassy slope on one side of the farmhouse on their backs, gazing up at the night sky, until Shawn came out and told them to come back inside. Neither of them were exactly astrology nerds, but for some reason they just really,  _really_  loved it.

There was something about watching the night sky. Something the two of them connected with, despite their different mothers, and it's that something that brought them together.

It carried on during their teenage years, and even when it got a little harder to find time for it, with Maggie going away for college, and Beth being busy with exams . . . whenever Maggie came home for the summer, she would  _deliberately_  turn down going out with her friends, just so she could sit with Beth on their grassy slope.

Even when Jimmy came into the equation, and Maggie was indulging in her fair share of boyfriends, they still made time for  _their_  time beneath the stars. Their time. Beth and Maggie Greene beneath the night sky, watching the owls and nocturnal insects fly overhead in the mugginess of the Georgia weather.

 _Where are you now?_  Beth wonders, the fond memories warming her from within yet also feeding a subtle flame of sorrow.

Pining, for those memories to become reality again.

_Did you find Glenn? Did you find him in the chaos of the attack? Are you with him now? Are you safe . . . ?_

_Are you looking for me?_

Beth has no doubt at all that Maggie had made it out of there alive, because how  _can_  she have doubt? It's  _Maggie_. Her brave elder sister who knows to take care of herself, and others too. She'd have found Glenn and got them both out safely, and they'd be out there now too, sleeping in the trees and wondering the same as her and Daryl . . .

Who else made it out?

 _Did_  anyone else even make it out? Daryl certainly didn't think so, but maybe he  _did_  and was just trying not to get his hopes too high to avoid running the risk of being disappointed. That, she could understand.

But Maggie wasn't going to disappoint Beth.

She never did.

.

.

"What'd'ya mean,  _Beth was with me_? Where is she now!?"

Daryl squirms uncomfortably as Maggie advances in on him, eyes blown wide with shock and disbelief at his words.

The darkness of the train car they're trapped in does little to hide the intense luminosity in her eyes, and Maggie knows he feels awkward because of her reaction to learning that Beth actually  _survived and_   _escaped_  the prison. He told her they'd been together for a while, before she'd been taken under the cover of darkness one night, and there was nothing he could've done to stop it from happening.

He ran after the car, he did that, but he couldn't catch it. He tried, but he didn't try hard enough because she'd still been taken.

 _At least he tried at all_ , the harsh part of her mind snapped bitterly.

 _You hardly did_.

"But she's alive?" she asks desperately, close to tears.

"She's alive."

She sinks back into a sitting position and lifts her hands to cup her mouth. Glenn comes closer and plants a hand on her shoulder, and she puts hers over his and squeezes.

Beth's alive, or  _was_  when Daryl last saw her, but Maggie's basically already given up all hope that she possibly could be. So where is she now? Is she okay? Is she  _still_  alive? And is she wondering where her big sister has gone, and why she hasn't come looking for her?

_Where are you now?_

_Oh, Beth. Where are you?_

.

.

Grady is a strange place, and Beth's not entirely sure how she's supposed to get out.

It's not like the prison, where she can find Daryl and run off into the wilderness with him, and it's not like the farm, where Lori can come take her hand and drive her away from the burning vicinity with T-Dog.

She's alone. Completely, and truly, alone.

She wonders if anyone will come to save her. If Daryl had seen the car and gone chasing, or if Maggie will come rescue her little sister. She wonders if Maggie even knows she's here. Probably not, because she might not even know she's  _alive_ , never mind that she's been kidnapped by fake police officers.  _She_  doesn't even know where  _Maggie_  is, so it's highly unlikely that she'll be able to track her down all the way to a hospital in Atlanta.

There's no one coming to save her, no one guaranteed to even know where she is, so there's only one way to get out of here. And she'll have to do it alone.

_You ain't never gonna see Maggie again!_

She walks down the hallway to where Edwards is waiting for her.

_We'll see about that._

.

.

Maggie doesn't know if she's ever felt greater disappointment than when she sees Tyreese emerge from the wooden cabin in the woods with Judith in his arms . . .  _without_  Beth. She glances over at Daryl and knows he feels the same disappointment, because his expression sinks and his lower lip literally trembles. He feels the same as her, like he's failed  _her_ , like it's all his fault she's gone, and there's nothing either of them can do about it.

They don't know where she is, or if she's even still breathing.

 _But we gotta believe_.

That's what Daryl said when she mentioned bitterly that Beth might not even still be alive.

It surprised her, hearing him say that. It surprised everyone really.

His faith. His faith in her.

When they're all huddled together by candlelight in the church a couple of days later, Maggie sneaks another glance at Daryl. She catches him discretely blowing out a few candles around him, cloaking himself in a pale dimness that's not exactly dark, but filled with considerably less light than the rest of the church. She doesn't know why he's blowing out the candles, or why he's doing it so subtly as if to avoid people noticing. Like he's afraid of the answer he'll have to give if they ask why he's doing it.

He glances over and meets her eyes.

He freezes when he realises she's seen what he's doing, and his expression is bathed in dismay. And  _shame_. Like she's caught him doing something absolutely  _awful_ , and is expecting her to lash out and shout at him, though she can't think of any reason  _why_.

He gets up eventually, abandoning his unfinished can of clumpy soup, and walks out of the church, presumably to look for Carol, who's been absent for a while now.

Maggie considers following him and questioning his odd behaviour that came about after Beth's vacancy, but remembers the look in his eyes when she caught him blowing out the candles and decides against it. Whatever it is, he's clearly still struggling with it himself, meaning the last thing he needs is someone else coming and pestering him about it. So she lets him walk out through the church doors and instead focuses on Sasha's warm grip on her hand.

.

.

_Where are you, Maggie?_

Beth hadn't thought the hospital could get any worse until Edwards betrayed her trust and manipulated her into killing one of his own enemies for him.

She'd dealt with Gorman, she'll deal with Dawn when it comes to it, and Noah is already home free, so there's nothing at stake anymore. The only obstacle standing in her way now, apart from Dawn . . . is  _Edwards_. And she is  _not_  staying in this awful place any longer, even if Daryl or Maggie don't come rescue her.

She can take care of herself now. And she will.

But as she stalks towards the cowardly doctor from the shadows of the corridor, she notices the body being wheeled in on the wounded tray, and lifts her scarred and battered head slowly to get a look at the newest hospital prisoner . . .

It's Carol.

Her pulse triples in that moment with relief, exhilaration, confusion, and  _dread_. Excitement, because if Carol's here that means others must be close by; but dread, because if she's here  _too_. . .

She can't afford to be careless with who she bludgeons with tiny medical scissors.

She has to be careful now. And clever,  _very_  clever. But to some extent, she knows she's already the latter, because she's  _always_  been able to do that. Right since the start. With every,  _We're just swimmin', Daddy,_  and,  _Joan was lookin' for you, I saw her and Gorman headed towards your office._

Beth might not be Michonne or Carol or Maggie, but she knows now that she can  _manipulate_  people with innocent words and by batting her eyelashes.

She has a strength, and now it's time to drop the quiet mousy act and show it.

 _I don't know where you are now_ , she thinks of her sister again as Carol's wheeled into the operating room by Edwards and the wards,  _but I will get back to you. I will get out of here and find you, and I'll know where you are when I do. And then you'll know where I've been, and what I've done to get back to you._

.

.

She feels like she's made the wrong choice by agreeing to go with Abraham and his party to D.C. She feels like she's made a fatal mistake, like this decision will make something  _really_  wrong in the long-run, but she made a promise to go, so she does. Her and Glenn with Tara, Abraham, Rosita, and Eugene.

 _What about Beth?_  she sometimes thinks, in the back of the fire truck.

It feels like she's leaving her, wherever she may be, and the guilt comes back again and chews at her arteries; laps up all the blood that shoots out with its slimy forked tongue.

_Where are you?_

_Christ. Beth. Where ARE you?_

Glenn says she'll be fine. Rick and the others will find her. She'll be safe. They don't have to worry. Of course, she'll be safe if they find her, but what if they  _don't_?

Daryl won't stop until he's found and brought her home, Maggie knows that now, but she's still wondering just  _why_  he's so intent on doing that. Why he'll stop at nothing to believe in her, and bring her back where she belongs.

 _Then I realised something else, that I don't want you in danger ever_.

Are there different ways to say  _I love you_? Maggie thinks there are. So is it possible that Glenn's words to her on the farm . . . mean something similar to Daryl's unreservedly desperate quest to find Beth? Persistence and painful optimism are what brought her back to Glenn, and those qualities are just the  _beginning_  of what Daryl's showing in his search for her sister.

He has  _hope_.

Whatever happened during their time alone before she went missing, whatever took root between the two . . . Beth somehow managed to slide a little bit of  _hope_  into Daryl Dixon. And maybe that means something in itself too, something Maggie thinks she won't  _ever_  be able to fully understand what that means, but she can appreciate it.

And maybe she can put her faith in something as well.

.

.

Beth sits with her legs dangling off the edge of the Grady Memorial Hospital's elevator shaft, staring down into the deep green-blue hue below, and thinking just how easy it would be . . . to  _jump_. . .

She won't, obviously, but in that moment she  _wants_  to. The urge to completely obliterate herself being so intensely strong right there, but that's just because it's psychologically proven to be the strongest emotion a person can possibly feel. Except Beth thinks there's at least  _one_  emotion stronger than that, and it's that that's keeping her from leaning forward and tumbling down like Alice and the rabbit hole, only there'd be no Wonderland down at the pit of this opening. There's just one emotion stronger than that.

Hope.

 _Hope_  is stronger than the unexplainable yearning for death, and it's the hope of getting out of here that keeps her going. Getting out with Carol and seeing their family again. Carol hasn't woken up yet, but Beth knows there'll be someone with her, someone in the city who can help them, and  _that_  gives her hope.

_Are you here, Maggie? Are you here with Carol? Did you find out where I was and come after me? Do you know where I am now? I still don't know where you are, or if you're even out there anymore, but I have to believe you are . . . I have to . . ._

_Because it's all I've got._

.

.

Michonne says Beth's alive. She's in a hospital in Atlanta, and Daryl and the rest are on their way to her now. A boy called Noah from the hospital met her, and they have to leave to join them now. To save  _Beth_ , and Maggie almost cries the tears she's been fighting so long at the incredible news.

Because she knows where she is.  _Finally_ , she knows.

And  _she's alive_.

.

.

The hospital hallway is crowded with people, cops and her friends alike, but there's one particular face that's missing, and it makes Beth's heart sink to see it vacant.

Maggie isn't there.

There's Rick, Daryl, Tyreese, Sasha, and Noah. A small abundance of their original prison group, and Beth tries to calm herself by thinking they might've only sent a few to come and do the trade, because it would be stupid to send everyone in at once. It would be stupid . . .

But still.

 _Maggie_  isn't there.

Maggie, Glenn, Michonne, others too . . . They're missing, and she can understand why some aren't there, and why they haven't all come in, but _Maggie_. . .

She's her  _sister_.

Surely she would've come if she could. Surely she would've . . .  _Surely_. . .

_You ain't never gonna see Maggie again!_

Carol reaches her hand for Beth's and she takes it, squeezing the woman's hand for support. Rick makes his speech about the terms and agreements of the trade, but all Beth can think of is the question that's been stuck in her head since she fled the prison.

_Where are you?_

It's on her mind when Daryl comes forward to push Carol back to their group in her wheelchair, and it's still on her mind when Dawn grabs her by the arm and delivers her to Rick in the middle.

He plants a large hand on her shoulder and presses his mouth to the crown of her head, where he plants a hard kiss at the top of her skull and rubs her forearm firmly. A gesture she recognises as an apology, a promise, and a display of credence. The  _I'm sorry_  that she didn't even know she wanted. He lets her walk past after he's done that, and Daryl reaches out as she passes him and plants a strong hand on her shoulder too, giving her a light shake to make her look at him. His eyes are shining, and she'd hug him in any other situation, but it isn't the time for that, so she represses the wave of relief and utter joy that's washed over her upon seeing him, and instead settles on a watery smile with a tiny nod.

"Now I just need Noah."

And then it all goes to hell, and the question in Beth's mind changes as she walks towards Dawn with the scissors poking out of the cast on her wrist. In her mind, as she whispers the breathy,  _I get it now_ , and plunges the weapon into Dawn's shoulder.

_Where were you?_

.

.

Grady Memorial Hospital's parking lot comes into view through the window of the fire truck, and Maggie can't wipe the smile of eager bliss off her face.

Michonne is clasping her hand and Glenn has his arm around her shoulders, but Maggie's thoughts are entirely devoted to Beth.

_I found you. I found you._

_I'm coming_.

The fire truck parks and she practically leaps out, drawing her gun just to be safe and following the others into the back part of the building. There are walkers emerging from behind the cars but they take care of them, and Maggie notices the door to the building opening and bites at her lip to suppress her giddy grin.

Rick comes out first, and she smiles at him but he avoids her gaze. His posture is somewhat slumped and his expression isn't victorious in any sense, in fact, it looks like there are  _tears_  in his eyes threatening to spill. His eyes dart to Michonne, who's smiling with anticipation too, and gives her a subtle shake of his head, then walks over to stand in an empty spot in the parking lot.

Sasha comes out next, gun held tight in her hands, and she avoids looking at everyone completely, walking with purpose and a silent rage in her step.

Tyreese and Carol follow behind, her hand clasped in his with him supporting her like she's seriously hurt herself, and their expressions are defeated and melancholy too. In fact, it looks like Carol's crying. Maggie sees a boy she assumes is Noah standing by the entrance holding the door open, staring at his feet, with an expression  _absorbed_  by guilt and regret.

Then she sees who comes out last . . . and who he's  _carrying_.

She catches a glimpse of Daryl, but the view is still partially obscured by Tyreese and Carol . . . until they walk to the side and Maggie sees the spectacle in full.

She  _screams_.

Drops her gun and screams, then falls to the ground and  _wails_ , all those tears she'd held for so long leaking down her cheeks and mixing with snot. Screaming as Glenn kneels behind her and folds his arms around her from the bag, holding her together like she's going to shatter into a hundred tiny little pieces.

Because there she is . . . her little baby sister . . . she's found her at  _last_. . .

But she's dead in Daryl's arms.

_NO. NOT THIS. NO FUCKING WAY. PLEASE GOD, IF YOU ARE UP THERE, PLEASE NOT THIS. YOU SADISTIC FUCKING BASTARD._

Daryl's sobbing silently as he walks forward with her hanging limply in his arms, her  _oh god it's so bloody_ head having fallen against his chest and bouncing with his every step. Her beautiful blonde ponytail is streaked with blood, blood everywhere, covering the top of her head and having splattered around her forehead.

There's not actually  _that_  much blood, but it's still too much, it's  _too much fucking blood,_  and Maggie screams again as Daryl stops at the center of the group's formation and squeezes his sticky eyes shut, shoulders heaving with his sobs. She feels Glenn still leaning behind her, hugging her tightly from behind, squeezing her so tight despite her thrashing and silently reassuring her he's there, but she can't stop screaming; can't stop crying; can't stop  _looking_  at her like that, sagging like a broken doll.

_Where are you?_

All those nights spent wondering . . . Every little thing that happened to push her in the direction of having just a tiny  _sliver_  of hope . . .

The world feels like it's gone silent apart from the sound of screaming and sobbing, and a white noise fills her ears. It might stay silent forever now. She can't think of a reason for it to ever coax its birds into singing again, not now the bird with the sweetest and most beautiful song had fallen from the branches.

She wishes she'd never found her.

Not if it was going to be like this.


	2. Sweet memories caused me brain trauma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Days had gone into nights and nights had gone into days  
> And everyday gone count one thousand days in my life.  
> While weeks had gone into months and months into years, still no sign of you.  
> For the days are outnumbered that my mathematical prowess can't calculate.  
> Your sweet memories caused me brain trauma that  
> I can't distinguish white from black."
> 
> —(Poem: [Where Are You Now?](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/where-are-you-now-4/))

They can't bury her.

That's what makes it worse. Walkers came after that, lots of them, probably having been attracted to Maggie's screaming, and they have to run. They have to run far and fast, out of the city before it's too late.

But of course . . . Beth  _can't_  run.

She can't do anything.

They all have to split up to flee the city, similar to the prison, only this time they all have a meeting place so they can eventually regroup in the end. Maggie's supposed to go with Glenn and Tara, but she'll be damned if she's leaving her sister a second time.

Not again.

"I won't go without her!" she screams at Daryl, who's still got her clamped to his chest like she's  _his_ ,  _not_  Maggie's, and it makes her want to snatch her from him and hold her blood-soaked head to her own breast.

He gives her a brutal look, one blazing with the rage she deserves, but doesn't try to fight her. And they run, down the Atlanta streets and away from the gathering herd. It's her, Daryl, Glenn and Abraham, with Beth's sagging physique hanging from Daryl's arms like a sack. A walker comes out of nowhere and snaps its jaws in her direction, and Maggie plunges her knife into its rotting brain before it can lay its filthy disease-ridden tongue on her little sister. Like she'd let it fucking  _dare_. They run for what feels like hours, sweating and panting, Daryl's shoulders tense like rock as he struggles to keep hold of his precious cargo. Eventually, they make their way up onto the roofs of the city, and they stop just to catch their breaths.

She can't look at her. Can't bear to see what she knows is technically her own doing. Can't bear to see Daryl sat on the edge of the roof with her still in his lap, cradling her cautiously like a china doll.

 _Everything's so fragile_ , she thinks, staring down into the abyss of walking corpses. _You have to treat everything like glass because if you don't, the next thing you know it's shattered into a million tiny little pieces, and there's no chance of sticking it back all together. Broken china_ — _smashed and abused._

Things break.

People die.

Her  _sister_. . .  _dies_. And she's not ready to bear the weight of that, any life regardless, but it's her  _sister_.

If she hadn't just assumed she was dead that day, fleeing the prison with Sasha and Bob . . . If the only hope she'd forced herself to cling to hadn't been just Glenn being on the bus . . . If she'd just  _believed_  a little like Daryl urged her to, because he sure as hell did. Did it like his life depended on it, because somehow it sort of did. If she'd just had the tiniest little  _blink_  of faith . . . She might've been able to save her.

But she hasn't saved her. She hasn't saved her at all because she's  _lying_  there, in the direction she refuses to face, leaking scarlet rivers down Daryl Dixon's lap and it hurts so bad that she just can't—

 _Calm down_.

She chokes.

 _Calm down_ , Beth's voice whispers in her head,  _Breathe, Maggie. Breathe._

But she just chokes more because that's  _her_  voice, that's her voice right in her ear and she can hear her so  _clearly_. But she shouldn't be able to hear that because she's not around to speak anymore. She  _can't_  speak, she can't move, she can't do  _anything_.

Yet still. She continues to sing.

"I—I—Oh, god I—"

"Maggie?"

Glenn comes in front of her and holds her firmly by the shoulders, staring with those expressive dark eyes of his, and she strangles on her own words. She hears Abraham faintly ask if she's all right, which is a stupid question because  _of course, she's not all right_. She'd have to be a robotic emotionless  _monster_  to be alright after this, and right then she's alarmed to find that she really doesn't  _want_  Glenn's gentle words or comfort. Not now. That's the last thing she wants.

She wants them all to shut up. Them and the walkers. She wants it all to just shut up. Everything's so loud and cruel—all punches and uproar. Everything tears her eardrums apart and makes her head pound with the blasting. Everything hurts.

But not  _Beth_.  _She's_  not that. She's soft and good and kind. She's the only whisper in a world of screams. The only sound that doesn't hurt.

The only sound that  _soothes_.

_Hold on,_

_Hold on._

"Maggie, can you hear me?"

She shakes her head.

"I can't keep doin' this, I can't keep—I can't—"

Glenn throws his arms around her and a clump of snot rolls down her throat, clogging it all and making it hard to even breathe, and she thrashes and actually  _shoves_  him away.

He makes a move to come closer but she throws up her hands, squeezing her stinging eyes shut and releasing an enormous whine. He calls her name a few more times but it all just blends into noise, all screams and volume, and she balls her hands into fists to dig her nails into her palms. Everything hurts. Everything's loud and horrible, and she can't hear Beth's gentle distant singing in the screams.

_Hold on,_

_Hold on,_

_You gotta hold on._

.

.

They leave her like that for a while, but they can't stay long because the walkers and the others are waiting. They'll have to leave eventually, that's inevitable.

Plus, there's the issue of Beth's body.

They can't stay too long, so Maggie wipes her eyes and strides along the roofs at the front. That way her gaze is fixed on the horizon ahead, and not on her at the back. There aren't any walkers for a while, and Maggie silently thanks the Lord for his grace.

Until all of a sudden there they are.

She curses God for his monstrous cruelty and lack of mercy. He never has any mercy, not even for the ones who ask or deserve it. All he does is take and kill and then take some more. He never listens to the prayers of the needy, nor does he really even seem to care. He never does anything to help when they're in need.

Maybe he was never really there in the first place.

They've come down from the roofs now, and when they turn a corner several blocks down from the Grady Memorial building, they flock like diseased birds. Maggie encounters them first, still being at the front, and takes out a few with her knife. Glenn helps clear the way and Abraham defends the rear, placing Daryl in the center of the formation because he needs the most protection. Or rather, who he's  _carrying_  does. Coughing up a ball of spit, she howls and kicks the walkers out of her way by attacking their legs, sending them crashing down and flailing. The scene is grotesque, bodies piling up that they have to trample over to progress forward, and Maggie's arms burn from the fighting.

She imagines their rotting faces as the embodiment of her pain, as if killing them would eliminate it, or at least ease it a little. But you don't ease pain, she's come to accept that now. You just make room for it.

Beth's the only soothing remedy.

"You go that way, it's clear!" Glenn yells to Daryl over the rasps and snarls, pointing to an empty streetway they're coming up to, "You and Abraham take her and get the hell out! We'll draw them away as best we can!"

"We're not just gonna leave ya to fight all of 'em alone!" Abraham yells back, stabbing two walkers at once with the barrel of his rifle.

"It's the only way! We'll meet up with you later, don't worry! Now go!"

They nod reluctantly and dart down the clear street with only a couple of walkers following, the rest drawn by the noise Glenn and Maggie are making.

Maggie looks up over the decaying snarling heads and catches one last glance of those red-streaked blonde locks before they disappear down the road as if they were never there to begin with. Gone again, always a little too far, just out of reach.

 _We don't get to be upset_.

Beth's voice is insistent.

 _We have to fight,_ she says firmly, and Maggie nods _._

_Fight! Fight! FIGHT!_

Maggie  _screams_  and attacks an abundance of the monsters, splattering blood and guts across her tear-stained cheeks that mix with newly falling tears, and she screams so loud to try talk over the loud voices that won't ever shut up. She shouts in the face of death and dares it to scoop her up in its shadowy palms, but it won't.

It only does that to the ones who aren't afraid to keep singing despite the misery.

.

.

They only just manage to escape the grasp of the herd, and seek refuge in the top floor of a corner store. It's fenced up at the front and there's a gate with a lock, keeping the walkers out and trapped behind strong iron bars. Glenn barricades the downstairs entrances anyway and knocks down the wooden staircase that leads up to the second floor they're holed up in. There's an exit around the back that leads up onto the roofs again, but he says they need to rest and regain their strength. Especially her, because apparently, she looks like she's going to collapse from exhaustion and trauma.

She  _feels_  that way.

He finds some unopened water bottles in a stash someone looks to have made a long time ago but never came back for, and offers her one. Her throat is like sandpaper and she's struggling to talk because of dehydration, but somehow the last thing she wants to do in that moment is drink.

She's tired.

She's so . . .  _tired_. And maybe water will make her feel better, but she doesn't deserve to feel better. She doesn't deserve to be anything other than suffering, because what was Beth doing in that hospital whilst she was on route to Washington?

 _Suffering_. She was suffering every day. And she was alone.

She refuses the bottle.

"Maggie . . ."

"Please," she shakes her head, "Don't."

He nods and looks at his feet, before stuffing the bottles and a couple of other supplies into his bag, whilst Maggie lays down on the ground where she's sat and stares at the wall opposite. The paint's dull and cracked, but it's oddly comforting, so she closes her eyes and swallows the lump at the back of her throat, trying to get some rest. Glenn doesn't try to snuggle down next to her like he would usually, but he does sit reasonably close in order to watch over her. She's always had someone watching over her, even when she doesn't necessarily want it. He's always been there, arms open with a loving smile.

She thinks he helps ease the pain, to an extent, at least, but perhaps he's just a  _distraction_  from it. Something to help her make room for it. Make her forget for a while. Regardless though, he's always been there. Always with her.

While Beth had no one.

Sleep eventually swallows her, and the nightmares sharpen their claws and prepare to savage her . . . as the singing gradually begins to quieten.

.

.

Suddenly she's back on the farm.

She's laying on the grassy slope where she and Beth used to watch the stars when she opens her eyes. The grass is bone dry and the smell is so vivid she almost swears it's real. But it can't be. Because if it was, Beth would be lying down right next to her.

She reaches out and palms the empty spot on the hill, fingers clutching the grass that's damp with some metallic musky substance . . .

It's blood.

She jolts and pulls herself up away from the patch of red in the grass, and shivers violently. As she does, her cowboy hat falls and splashes in the scarlet stained section of ground, and bile rises in her throat. Standing, she leaves the hat there in the blood and examines her surroundings. The farm looks normal, only there's something not quite right that reminds her it's still a dream. Something in the air, in the grass with the blood, in the sky. She casts her eyes skyward and stares at the puffy white clouds that are starting to churn and distort.

The white bleeds grey and electric blue flashes in the dim watercolour fog cover, and a sickly warm wind blows through the field.

Maggie brings her gaze back down as a  _crash!_  of thunder rumbles in the distance, and all of a sudden the patch of blood on the grass is gone. She leans down and picks up the hat—no longer stained murky red—and feels something inside. Angling it up so she can see better, she spies a small silhouette in the darkness of the hat's pit, so she vigilantly reaches in . . .

Her fingers graze something warm and fluffy, and a wave of nausea pulses in her stomach, because when she pulls it out and holds it in her palm . . . she sees it's a bird.

A  _dead_  baby bird.

Shrieking in horror, she drops the hat and hurls the deceased carcass far over the slope, and falls to her knees to dig her fingers into her hair and moan. Beth's silent in her head in this dream, which is unusual because she's been considerably noisy in the ones she had while they were separated. She's not singing this time, nor is she calling out or crying. She's just silent. Completely absent actually. She's nowhere to be seen or heard.

 _Gone_.

"Magpie?"

She exhales brutally, the voice pulling her out of her soul-crushing despair because she  _knows_  that voice. Of  _course_ , she knows it, she'd know it anywhere, and honestly how could she  _forget_  it?

". . . Da— _Daddy_?"

Hershel Greene—her motherfucking  _d_ _addy_ —is standing there in the field with his lidded hat and farming gloves on, and he's looking at her.

She lets out a whine, tears dribbling down her cheeks in thick snotty droplets, and she stares into his warm kind eyes, then lurches forward. She runs to him, but her legs don't work and she falls, toppling down onto her front in the mud. He's still there when she forces her head back up, but he's made no attempt to come towards her. He just stands, sunny yellow shirt and honey braces glowing in contrast to the stormy landscape, and she makes a move to get up but just tumbles again.

"Don't overexert your body's capability," he says then in that tender Southern tang she'd taken for granted two whole decades of her life, and kneels before her, "You're killing yourself."

She wails and presses her cheek into the ground, shaking her head desperately.

". . . You're not real . . ."

"I know, honey. I know."

"I didn't want this," she breathes between sobs, "I never wanted any o' this to happen. I just—I . . . I just wanted to keep you both safe . . . But I can't even do  _that_!"

"Where's Bethy?"

A tear rolls into her mouth and she tastes the salt. The question feels random in regards to what she was just saying, but of course, he asks that. And it hurts even more because she knows he knows the answer already.

_Where's Beth? That's the question I've been asking for months, Daddy._

_I don't know. I never know. She's always just outta my grasp; just out of reach. I try to get to her but I can't, I try but I can't . . . ! I can never catch up._

"I'm  _sorry_ ,"

He raises a large calloused palm and uses it to lift her chin. Her lower lip wobbles, caked in dirt and snot, and he smiles. Just like he did before The Governor swung Michonne's sword down on his jugular. Just before she lost him too.

"We all got a job to do in this life," he says.

And suddenly his voice warps into  _Beth's_ , and Maggie's struck with disturbing alarm.

"We don't get to be upset, Maggie."

The dream wavers and she feels sick again, clinging to his shirt pathetically as she cries in the grass, and the clouds open to pour down their rainfall. The rain smells like tears, and when she looks back up, Daddy's gone and she's all alone.

There's a lock of gold hair in the dirt by her knees so she picks it up and cradles it in her palms. It's so fragile, so unfairly darn  _fragile_ , easily snapping and falling back to the ground in two, and once again . . . Beth is silent.

_I won't go without you!_

_I wanna_ go  _. . . In this bed . . . Tonight . . . With you beside me._

She picks the broken strands of blonde hair back up and holds them to her breast that's now mysteriously stained with blood. Like her heart is bleeding and the blood is seeping out and soaking her front, because honestly, that's what it feels like. Someone might as well have cut out her heart and devoured it in front of her, or thrown it to a pack of hungry walkers for them to feast upon. Maggie knows a person can't survive without a heart pumping, but maybe after great enough damage—enough heartbreak—it just keeps beating out of habit, and that's how people stay alive. Dead inside, yeah, but technically alive on the outer shell. And she doesn't think she wants to survive like that.

_Please come back to me._

But she doesn't.


	3. Come back home 'cause I need you like flowers need a sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Dreams can't stop me from missing you.  
> Imaginations can't stop me from seeing you.  
> Thoughts can't stop me from expressing how deep is my love.  
> Come back home cause i need you like flowers need a sun."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments and kudos, they're all very much appreciated. I actually made a gifset inspired by this fic with some of the lines from the poem "Where Are You Now?", so head over to [tumblr](https://bethsmaggie.tumblr.com/post/147135365670/come-back-home-cause-i-need-you-like-flowers-need) to check that out.

It's colder when she wakes, even though Glenn's draped a blanket over her sometime when she was asleep. There's an eerie chill plaguing the store and Maggie's instincts are screaming at her to get the hell out, but she can't, because Glenn says 'they still need rest'.

 _To hell with rest_ , she thinks, and sits up forcefully, making the blanket fall from over her shoulders.

Glenn's still sitting in the armchair, only he's nodded off and is sat leaning on his hand and snoozing lightly, despite the fact that he's supposed to be on watch. It doesn't really matter though, seeing as they're trapped up here with no longer any stairs for any walkers to climb.

She pushes the blanket to one side and stands, wobbling on her weak knees and steadying herself against the counter. She hurts  _everywhere_ , even on the inside.  _Especially_  on the inside. Her legs feel broken, her head feels like it's been ripped apart from within, and her eyes are sore and gummy. Rubbing her sticky eyes, she attempts to swallow but fails because of the dryness of her throat, so she seeks out the bottles of water and chugs one down. It's a luxury she doesn't deserve.

The walkers have quietened considerably from how loud they were before, and Maggie takes a peek down the fallen staircase to spot only a few left remaining. There's only a few . . . She could take that many, couldn't she? Vent a little; get it out of her system before she punches a wall, or worse,  _Glenn_.

That's the last thing she wants to do right now — hurt someone else that she loves, because she does love Glenn, she loves him so  _much_ , and she can't bear to imagine what's just happened with Beth happening to him . . .

 _Beth_.

Her heart caves in on itself and she feels it like the sting of a wasp. A wasp, not a bee, because a bee can't come back after it's used its one and only sting. A wasp can. Its sting is limitless, and it keeps coming back for more after every sharp acidic jab it inflicts.

_Where's Bethy?_

Where indeed.

Where have Daryl and Abraham taken her? Where are they now? Where is  _she_  now?

Those thoughts are interrupted by Glenn stirring in the chair, and he looks around for her for a second before seeing her standing there, and he smiles. It's intended to make her feel better, but it just makes her feel worse, only she tries not to show it and just nods distantly.

He gets up from the chair and picks up their pack, before turning back and gesturing for her to follow, because he knows they're not getting any more rest. If what she got could even be called  _rest_  in the first place. He opens the back door and checks to make sure that it's clear, before they're soon climbing up and along the rooftops of Atlanta once more. She's not sure how long they were asleep for because it was approaching twilight when they left the hospital building, but now it's early afternoon in what seems to be the  _next_  day. They must have slept for more than a few hours—again if you could call what Maggie was experiencing  _sleep_ —because it's almost an entire day later, and if they don't hurry up to the meeting spot then the group might make the assumption that they haven't made it.

Has Daryl made it to them with what's left of her sister? Is he still holding her in his lap and stroking the bloody strands of hair out of her scratched and scarred face, rocking backwards and forwards with that dreadful tremble? Does he still think she's his responsibility, and that what happened in that hospital was  _his_  fault?

It's Maggie's fault. Not his.

He's the  _least_  at fault. The blame could never be forced on him because he tried so hard to bring her home, and he almost  _did._  But then the worst case scenario happened, and he  _couldn't_  bring her home anymore. So he blames, mocks, and  _hates_  himself. Despises his very being for something he didn't even do. She should go to him when they reunite and take that blame from him because it's her that deserves to carry that on her shoulders, not  _him_. Even if she isn't ready to bear that, she knows he won't survive under the crushing weight of  _that_  failure.

"We're almost there," Glenn says, tilting his head back and flashing a warm smile, "Hang in there. Please, Maggie. Hang in there."

_You gotta hold on,_

_Hold on,_

_Gotta hold on._

She nods, but she's starting to doubt her ability to keep fighting it for much longer.

Plus, she doesn't know if she even wants to anymore.

.

.

Daryl and Abraham aren't back from the city when they reunite with the group just on the outskirts at the start of the woods. They're still out there, despite the opening they had when Maggie and Glenn cleared the path fighting their way through of the herd, and Maggie panics. But the panic is more for Beth, not them. She refuses all food and drink offered to her and just sits on a worn bench at the top of the hill they've climbed. Everyone's made it back except those two, and she's beginning to worry that her sister might be the reason they haven't made it back.

She can't take two more lives on her shoulders. She can't. But luckily she doesn't have to, because there they are, clambering up the hill to where the rest of them are, only there's something  _disturbingly_  very wrong.

Rick runs down to help them, and so does Maggie, ignoring Glenn's attempts to hold her back. She jogs down the slope after Rick until she eventually overtakes him with the aggressive speed she's going at, and stops just in front of the utterly exhausted looking Daryl and Abraham . . .

Who don't have  _her_  with them anymore.

"WHERE'S BETH!?" she screeches, uncaring of her loudness, and Daryl winces.

His once full arms are painstakingly empty, still streaked with blood and grime— _her_  blood, her mind screams—and she reaches out and grabs his shoulders.

"Where is she?" she demands, "Where's Beth? What've you . . . What've you  _done_!?"

"Hey now—" Abraham says, reaching out to stop her, but she slaps his hand away and pokes a bony finger into his chest.

" _Don't_  you touch me," she spits, "Don't you ever touch me again unless you're willin' to tell me what the hell you've done with my sister, an' then go bring her back!"

Rick runs down towards them and notices the lack of body, and shoots Daryl a quizzical look.

Daryl avoids it, which is . . .  _unusual_ , especially since it's Rick who's giving him the look. He's just standing there, silent, staring at his bloody shoelaces. He hasn't made any attempt to shove Maggie's hand from his shoulder, and she can feel him quaking beneath her palm.  _Violently_.

_Oh god . . . What have you done?_

_What have you DONE?_

"I didn't want . . ." he chokes, still staring at his feet, "I tried to—I tried to fuckin' hard to . . . I'm  _sorry_."

"Daryl . . ." she says gravely, "Tell me, please . . .  _Where_  is my sister?"

He doesn't answer.

But his gaze flickers to Abraham, who stares back almost guiltily, and all of a sudden Maggie realises she  _knows_  what they've done, because it's so obvious but she just can't believe they would  _do_  that. Not just to her, but to  _Beth_. She can't believe Daryl especially would do that to the girl he tried so hard to find and protect.

"No,"

"Maggie—" Rick starts, but gets cut off by her repeating the word firmer.

" _No_."

 _No way. No fucking way. Absolutely not. There was no way in hell they would've done that. No way. But then where_ was _she? Where_ was _she if they hadn't . . . ?_

"You left her."

The breath of silence and Daryl's sharp wince was confirmation enough, and a wave of scorching rage washed over Maggie as she removed her hands from Daryl's shoulder and Abraham's chest in fear of what she might do if they remained there.

 _No_.

Not possible.  _Not_  possible. It shouldn't be even remotely fucking possible. It shouldn't . . .

And yet.

She  _explodes_.

"You left her  _BEHIND_!? YOU LEFT HER THERE WITH ALL THOSE WALKERS LIKE SHE WAS EXTRA BAGGAGE, JUST A THORN IN YOUR SIDES, YOU LEFT HER LIKE SHE MEANT  _NOTHING_  TO YOU!  _DID_  SHE?!"

Daryl reacts to that and he looks at her from beneath his oily bangs, and the look in his eyes would have been enough to break her heart if she wasn't so unbelievably  _angry_.

He left her behind in a city infested with monsters, and he's looking at her like she was the most precious thing in the world to him and he's lost her. But the only reason he's lost her is because he abandoned her  _himself_.  _He_  did that;  _he_  left her; he didn't bring her home to her, and she wants to  _hate_  him for it.

"He didn't leave her,"

She stops screaming and turns to look at Abraham, who looks as guilty and broken as ever.

"What?" Rick asks, and Glenn walks down the hill to join them, having already overheard everything like the rest of the group anyway.

"I mean  _he_  didn't leave her . . ." Abraham explains, "It wasn't his fault . . . We had to split up. Got into a pickle that forced us to, and I had her when we went our separate ways."

Maggie feels her eyes fill with menace as the man painfully explains what happened, because she thinks she knows what he's trying to say already.

And she's ready to throw him back down the hill and into the herd as well.

"I couldn't carry her, they were gonna kill us both if I did, so I . . . I had no choice but to . . ."

"What'd you do with her?"

The question shocks them all and her tone is dripping with venom.

"You heard me," she hisses when he doesn't respond, "Where'd you  _dump_  her when ya decided she was too much of a burden for you? Where'd you trash her!?"

". . . There was a car . . ."

_A damned car._

_A_ car _._

"The trunk still opened and closed, an' I couldn't just leave her out in the open with all them walkers about . . . So I put her in there. That's where I left her."

She feels Glenn eye her warily, half horrified at Abraham's confession himself, but she doesn't turn to look at him. She keeps her eyes fixed on Abraham. Cold. Sharp. Sizzling with acid. She's quiet for a moment, and he meets that silent gaze for a while before biting the inside of his cheek, and his moustache twitches as he does.

It's that movement that makes her fully lose it.

She screams, before launching herself at Abraham and slamming her fists against his broad chest, punching away as hard as she can. Rick and Glenn move instantly to try to get her under control, but she lashes out at them too and just whacks her fist in every direction wildly, wailing her horrible moans of rage and distress. Abraham doesn't fight back, nor does he attempt to stop her, and just stands there taking every hit. Her fist connects with his jaw once and sends a mouthful of blood spurting out, but she doesn't regret it. Not even one little bit.

 _YOU DID THIS_ , her brain screeches,  _YOU DID THIS, YOU LEFT HER, YOU_ KILLED _HER! YOU KILLED HER WELL AND TRULY. YOU DIDN'T FIRE THE BULLET BUT SHE'S GONE BECAUSE OF YOU._

_SHE'S GONE AND SHE'S NEVER COMING BACK._

Beth's singing warps into something darker and more twisted as she punches with all the force in her body, and her ears throb with the shrill high tempo pounding through her head. Rick manages to wrap his arms around her waist and haul her away, but she thrashes at the sound of the piercing noise in her ears.

_No  . . ._

I _did this._ I _killed you. It was me._

The bird she found in the hat shrivels and melts away into tiny shards of dust, and eventually, the distorted singing ceases completely.

.

.

Rick wanted to leave after that, but Maggie outright refused and put her foot down.

The guilt can't eat any more of her because if it does, it'll eat every last piece and there'll be nothing left. She has to  _try_. This one time, this  _last_ time, maybe, she  _has_  to try.

"I'm goin' back into the city," she tells Daryl that night they're camped in the woods on Atlanta's outskirts.

He flinches when she talks to him, avoiding her gaze and twisting his fingers together.

He doesn't say anything, hasn't since what happened, so she continues.

"I can't just leave her there," she shakes her head, tone firm and passive-aggressive, "And I don't think you can either, so I'm askin' if you wanna come too."

_Where are you?_

He still doesn't meet her eyes, his gaze dull and lifeless directed at his lap, but he nods and stands up. He picks up his bow, his movements mechanical and robotic, then walks away from the camp without waiting for her to take the lead. She watches him walk for a while before following, and stares at the leather wings on his back – worn and faded, coming apart at the seams, barely still stitched on.

 _Angels have songs_ , Daddy used to say.  _They have their songs, and they're not necessarily mere audio, sometimes they can be physical things, but when that song silences . . . They're nothing._

_An angel without a song isn't an angel anymore. He's a fallen thing wandering hopelessly without his wings and music, walking as if he's dead. He may as well be dead._

Beth asked why they can't just sing new songs, or grow new wings, and Daddy shook his head with a smile and pulled his little girl onto his lap, gesturing for Maggie to do the same. They'd both sit on each knee and listen to his stories with awe and interest, and wait for him to finish each story.

_There is no new song for an angel. There's just the one. And without it . . . He's nothing._

Maggie blinks away her gathering tears and follows after Daryl, clutching her gun and keeping her eyes fixed on those worn leather wings on his back that she swears are still covered with all that blood.


	4. By sharing beaks and cuddling each other with songs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I want an explanation why I am snobbed every morning,  
> By the two love birds in the tree,  
> Who expresses their love,  
> By sharing beaks and cuddling each other with songs  
> Of praise expressing how deep is their love.  
> While I can't even have the start to kiss,  
> And cuddle a teddy bear.  
> Because liquids find their level and solids find their shape."

She wants to ask him something.

She thinks about it  _obsessively_  as she trails behind him on their way down back into Atlanta. The faded wings on his back seem to stare at her, splatters of blood speckled across the torn up feathers, and she wants so badly to just smash into them and violently push him to the ground.

 _She's down there because of Abraham_ and _you,_  she thinks aggressively.  _You didn't leave her in the car but you did leave her with_ him _. The two of you just_ had _to split up, you just had to leave her with him. And now she's lying there, alone and rotting in the dark._

_You were supposed to protect her. It was your job._

_Mine_ and _yours._

They take the path up across the roofs, just like she and Glenn took to escape, and they walk along the top of the buildings painstakingly close to the edge. They walk for hours, gradually making their way deeper into the city, until eventually Daryl stops at one edge and stares down into a herd of walkers below. The creatures rasp and hiss loudly, staggering around in the streets, bumping into one another with their clumsy mannerisms, and Maggie stops beside him. She stares down like he does for a while, before eventually turning her gaze up to rest on him. He looks at her too, eyes only half hidden by bangs and boring into her with a dull lifelessness that unnerves her, and it's then that she realises her own eyes must mirror that vacant quality his have.

They could jump.

They could lean just a few inches forward and fall, down and down into the sea of monsters below, and let them sink their decaying teeth into their warm pulsing skin.

It'd be long, it'd be painful, but it'd be easy. And frankly, Maggie thinks it might be what they deserve. Not the easy part, but the pain and the lengthiness of the process.

They deserve to suffer for what they've done, only they need a method that  _isn't_  easy.

They step away from the edge and continue walking. The night melts away into almost nothing, and the different colours of stars and sky meld into one as they venture deeper into the plague-cursed city. Maggie ponders over the note she left Glenn, tucked underneath his arm as he slept, filled with messy scrawls and a brief explanation of where she was going, and how he and the others weren't to follow her.

This is theirs to bear—hers and Daryl's. Not anyone else's.

 _They_  have to journey back into the serpent's nest and bring back that which they've condemned.

Sometime later, they stop on one of the roofs and sit down, backs against the brick wall of the square that led down into the building below. They're sat close, but not so close that it might start to feel like what they're doing is wrong. Their shoulders are touching, as are their knees, but they don't look at each other, and Maggie hopes he doesn't notice the way her shoulders are shaking.

It's okay though because his are too.

"You're not gonna answer anything I ask you," she suddenly says, a little surprised at her own forwardness, "No matter what I ask . . . I know you won't."

He doesn't respond.

"You can listen though, can't you?"

Again, he doesn't reply, but she knows him well enough to understand that's not a  _no_.

"You haven't said it, but about what happened after the prison, before Terminus . . . I know you're mad because I didn't look for her. You're holdin' it against me, might even resent me for it, but you'd never say anything about it. That's not who you are."

_Glenn got out, I'm gonna find him._

"You know it's not because I didn't care, but you still hate me for it. I know ya do. I can see it whenever you look at me."

_I couldn't find Beth._

"You blame me for what happened, and you're not wrong to because I do as well. I blame me too. What happened . . . What they did to her . . . It happened because I didn't believe she could'a made it out alive an' got in that situation to begin with. I didn't believe like you did . . . An' now I've paid the price."

He turns to glance at her then, but she doesn't meet his gaze, afraid of what she'll see if she does, and keeps her head down.

"When you told me she was still alive in the train car, I couldn't believe it," she admitted, "I couldn't believe she'd made it; that she was okay; and even though she was alone you seemed so sure she was  _still_  okay. You believed in her so much and I envied that, because no matter how much I loved her—and I  _did_ , I really did—or wanted to believe in her too . . . I couldn't. I just . . .  _couldn't_. And I'm the shittiest sister  _alive_  for that."

She's aware of how self-pitying she sounds in that moment, but she can't bring herself to care because all she can see is Beth.  _Beth_. Hanging from his arms with her eyes drooped closed and a bullet in her brain. Her beautiful blonde and sweet little bird.

She whimpers.

". . . I loved her. I loved her so much but I still couldn't . . . I couldn't find it in me to—I couldn't  _save_  her . . . !"

He surprises her then, and she gasps out loud because he lifts his hand and plants it over her own on her knee.

Her eyes go wide, glistening with tears, and she looks at him, and she was right to worry about what she might see when she did because he's  _looking_  at her. And he looks like he might cry as well. He clasps her fingers awkwardly, but the pressure is hard and she's surprised that he's even done  _that_. . .

Until she realises.

Being with Beth taught him things.

She might not be able to understand those things, and he might never tell her, but she did.

Beth, sweet little Beth took his hands in her own and pressed her lips to his palms, where she breathed new life and blew away all the scars and wrinkled lines. And with those newly healed palms of his, she led him away and showed him the way she saw the world. Good. Kind. Untainted by corruption and horror. She opened her mouth and whispered gentle songs into his ear, tender breaths and soft giggles,  _secrets_ , and Maggie gets all this just from him reaching out and clutching her hand.

Because Daryl doesn't just touch people.

He just  _doesn't_.

He doesn't reach out and just touch them, like it's the easiest thing in the world and won't hurt his nerves at the contact. He's okay with Carol, Rick and maybe Glenn to some extent, but not  _her_. She doesn't fit into that safe box he's built, and yet here he is holding her hand tight like he's known how to do it all along. Fear kept him from doing things like this, but Maggie  _knows_  it's Beth that pulled him aside and showed him he could push all that fear out of the way. That he didn't have to be ruled by his demons and worries. And for a while . . . He was willing to try.

But then the world snatched her up, and he's finally realised gentle pretty things can't last here. Nothing like that lasts.  _People_  like that don't last. He knows that now, he does . . .

And  _yet_.

He's here now, squeezing her hand honestly tighter than what's comfortable, but he's trying. He's  _still_  trying, even despite that, and it's breaking him in two and forcing his heart out through his eyes in droplets of salt and she wants to scream and push him away because of how strong he is. Because he is. He's so strong, he's always been so strong and brave. Beth recognised that before spending time alone with him. She used to tell Maggie all the time how strong he was, and it wasn't like Maggie didn't know because of  _course_  she did, but Beth knew in a different way. Even then, she knew.

Maggie doesn't know how to be strong like that.

Beth didn't get the chance to pull her aside and tell her that secret.

.

.

She doesn't know when she fell asleep, but soon she's waking, lied down on her side several feet across from Daryl, who's sat on the edge of the building staring out to the horizon. It's lighter than it was before, and streaks of faint light are beginning to creep up from over the distant mountains.

Maggie gets up and wanders towards the edge where he is and watches the pastel colours begin to bleed into the dark and deep red of the morning sky. A dark orange rises first, then a richer peachy red, and eventually flashes of light pink and a cool gold-hued blue. The two of them sit there in silence, watching the different stages of sunrise transition, and Maggie feels a soft breeze blow through the area.

It's so beautiful, and it makes her sad because Beth never got to see it. She died in the dark, underneath storm clouds and grey, and now the sky is lush and stunning again, but she's not here to see that.

"I sometimes do this," Daryl mutters unexpectedly, and his words startle her.

She looks at him but he keeps his gaze glued to the vivid distant sky.

"Watch it, I mean," he clarifies, his voice gravelly and quiet, "I sometimes watch it when I get the chance . . . Reminds me o' her."

She feels tears building at his confession.

"Me too."

He was one of the last people to see her alive, and that thought alone brings new tears to Maggie's eyes, but she blinks them away because they don't get to get upset. They have a job to do, and this job is finding Beth.

"She was important to you?" she asks, wiping her face with the inside of her palm, even though she already knows the answer.

He looks pained before he opens his mouth to say something, then closes it, seemingly changing his mind. He takes a while to answer then, but his voice quivers as he does.

". . . She was my friend."

Again, Maggie senses it's more than that, but she's sensitive enough not to pour salt in the wound. So she reaches out and plants a hand over his knee, and he passes her a fast glance. She gives him a compassionate nod and his lip twitches, then he stands up and picks up his crossbow.

Offering her a hand—another gesture that surprises her—he helps her up and they go on their way, whilst Maggie picks at the bloody residue Daryl transferred onto her palm when he touched her.

They finally reach the area where Daryl and Abraham split off, and they clamber down from the roofs to the streets below. Daryl leads the way like usual, and Maggie trails behind with her axe held in both hands and a pounding in her ears. There aren't any walkers in this area, at least it seems so, and they navigate through the blocks smoothly. Luckily there aren't many cars for them to search either, until they reach a crash of vehicles on one particular road. There's a lot, but they'll search every one no matter how long it takes. Daryl approaches the back of one and reaches out to open the trunk. His hand is shaking, Maggie sees, and she walks over to him.

They stare at the closed trunk for a while, before Daryl grips the handle and pulls it up.

It's empty.

They move to another car, repeat the process, then move on to another when that one is empty too. This continues for a while, and Maggie's starting to wonder if they should've brought Abraham with them, despite how badly she wants to batter his face in, when they freeze at something they see a little down the street.

They've checked nearly every car now, even the vans, and each one is empty. There isn't even any blood to suggest she might've been there, but there's  _something_  just ahead that catches their eye . . .

It's a car . . . but the trunk has been lifted up and it's sitting open.

The way the car is angled prevents them from seeing inside the trunk from where they are, so they walk over to it cautiously and make their way towards the back of the vehicle. Maggie drops her axe first, and Daryl drops his bow soon after, because this trunk is empty too just like the rest, but there's  _blood_  here, a lot of it, but even that on its own isn't enough to prove anything . . . Until they see.

There's a garment lying on the floor.

A  _cardigan_ , grey and drowned with blood and grime. And it's not just  _any_  cardigan.  _Oh_  no. They know  _that_  straight away . . .

It's hers.

It's  _her_  fucking cardigan, covered in blood, and it's  _lying_  there on the floor. Next to a trunk  _also_  full of her blood. Like a discarded wrapper tossed away after the contents inside have been eaten—

 _I don't want to be gutted_.

Maggie tries to scream but no noise comes out, just a shrill scratchy sound, and she sinks to her knees in front of the cardigan. She reaches out her hands shakily, vision spotted with white and red, and her fingers ghost over the damp itchy fabric. Holding it in her hands, she thinks more blood flows out when she squeezes it, and she has it in her hands and lifts it up to her face. She smears her nose in it, inhaling the toxic scent of blood, decay,  _Beth_ , and rot.

It  _stinks_ , easily the foulest thing she's ever smelt, and she can smell  _them_  there too.  _Walkers_. She can fucking smell them on  _her_  cardigan, and suddenly she feels a shot of bile rising in her throat.

She coughs and spews it out onto the ground in front of her, fisting the garment in her hand and screaming through the vomit. Her snot pours down her face and mixes with it, and she chokes. Daryl whines behind her and she sees him sag against the car from the corner of her blurred vision, but that's the last she sees of him because her eyes fill with tears and she cries.  _Really_  cries. She screams loudly and pushes her head down into the gravel, hard so she draws blood from the graze on her cheek, and the putrid smell from the cardigan nestles its way into her nostrils and latches onto the hairs inside permanently.

 _I wanna go, in this bed, tonight, with you beside me_.

 _Please_.

Maggie thinks she leaves her own body for a minute.

_Oh god, oh god, OH GOD. What've I done, WHAT'VE I DONE?_

_She wanted us to both do it. She wanted us to do it at the same time, help each other because it's hard to do it, she said we could do it if we were together. Our choice, and then it'd be over, before we were forced to do it later . . . Alone._

_No one can protect us._

She's right. She's right. She's always fucking  _right_. No one can protect them. No one can protect  _anyone_. You have to protect yourself in this world, because if you don't, it swallows you. You  _have_  to be able to take care of yourself, and with everyone's combined efforts, maybe then you can make it.

But there was no one for Beth when she was on her own in that hospital. She was  _alone_. And it  _wasn't_  her choice.

They should've both lied down in her bed that night and ended it.

Together.

Then she would've been beside her when it ended and it would've been over. Because what else does she have left to fight for now? There's nothing. Absolutely nothing. Everything's gone.  _She's_  gone. And Maggie wonders what it would be like to  _stop_  fighting. To give in. Make a choice, at last.

Maybe it's better like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an fyi, if you read the first chapter of Running Blind (that fic self promo), you'll see what's happened here with the cardigan and empty trunk. Unless you've already have read it and you're reading this alongside that fic, in that case RIP you.
> 
> Come join the [Greene Network](http://greenenetwork.tumblr.com/)!


	5. You are the most beautiful thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "My worst sin on earth is letting your memories fade away,  
> And my dream is to always shape this love not to be in disarray.  
> You are the most beautiful thing Earth can be proud of,  
> And your love is an abundant blessing I can't think of."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your continued support and comments, I'm glad you've been enjoying the fic (if you can even call this sick torture 'enjoyment'). I hope you'll continue to do so as we continue on.
> 
> There's only this and one more chapter left for this story, as well as an epilogue at the end. It's been a pleasure to write this, but it was never my intention to write a huge hundred-chapter fic about it. The purpose of writing this was to explore Maggie in the aftermath of what happened to Beth, and attempt at shedding some insight of my thoughts about her over the situation. Because Maggie loved her sister. People can try to deny it, but she did. She loved her a lot. And her death very nearly broke her. You can see that. She managed to pull through because like Glenn said: that's who she is. But she almost didn't make it. Neither did Daryl.
> 
> I hope that reading this fic helped you see the ordeal the way I saw it and through my eyes, as well as acting as a prequel piece for Running Blind. Once this is finished, feel free to head over to that story if you want to see what did in fact happen to Beth, and also if you want to see what happens to Maggie and Daryl and the others after the events of this fic have come to a close.
> 
> So as always, enjoy and please leave a comment with your thoughts. Thanks!

A dream, she thinks. She thinks it's a dream. It must be, because Beth isn't here anymore, but she is  _here_ , with her, at the other end of the field beneath the stars.

Maggie blinks slowly and glances up at the night sky, speckled glittering light gathering in elaborate clusters above her, and looks back down again. She cranes her head and looks at the halo of blonde down the murky emerald field, and starts to make her way across the grass.

She feels like she's forgotten something. Something sad, and horrible, but also beautiful. Blood and gold. It feels like a distant memory that doesn't seem to matter here, so she ignores it and carries on walking. She trips, like one always seems to in a dream, and feels like she's trapped in tar. The blades of grass wind around her ankles and ensnare her, stroking her feet with their sharp fingers. There's a distant song playing from beyond the trees of the farm, and she turns and sees the barn is on fire. Like it was that night they left everything behind and fled. The start of the gradual crawl to death. She watches the flames stretching up to try and drag some of the stars down, but feels no warmth from the burning inferno. Just a coldness that's taken root in her heart. A rotting dampness.

Fingers grace beneath her chin and tilt her head up, and—still on her knees—Maggie looks up and gasps because it's Beth.  _Beth's_  fingers, tilting up her chin, and she's come down to a crouch too so that they're level with each other.

Maggie stutters and curls a hand around Beth's wrist, holding it. Her thumb runs along the bumpy line she feels on the inside of her wrist, where she dragged the shard of broken mirror, and Beth cocks her head curiously.

"You're crying," she whispers, and Maggie trembles at the sound of her gentle musical voice.

She lifts the hand that's not holding up her chin and catches a tear from her cheek, and Maggie laughs.

So does Beth, and her smile is radiant with her dazzling doe eyes and unscarred cheeks. She removes her hand from her chin and instead clasps her hands, and the distant song blows through the field on a warm night wind. Tiny embers from the barn blaze drift along on the breeze too and fly past them, catching on Beth's shimmering hair and patterning the strands with small flames. Her ponytail blows in the wind and the flames lick at her swinging braid, and Maggie suddenly lurches forward and throws her arms around her.

"I'm  _sorry_ ," she breathes into her neck, "I'm sorry I let this happen to you."

She feels Beth smile against her head.

"It's okay. It's better now."

". . . Is it?"

Beth doesn't respond to that, and it's probably because she doesn't really know the answer. How could she? She's only a manifestation of Maggie's memory after all. That's how she used to describe dreams to Beth when they were little, when she peered her head around Maggie's bedroom door, frightened by a nightmare, and asked to sleep with her.

She doesn't push for an answer. Just sits and holds her in her arms, listening to the distorting music and crackle of the barn fire.

"Does it hurt?"

"What?" she asks, and Beth pulls back to look at her.

"Does it hurt?" Beth repeats, then plants her hand over her breast just above her thrumming heart.

"Here."

She nods.

It does. It hurts so much and she can't ever hope to put into words how  _bad_  it hurts, but all she can think to do is nod. It seems to be enough for Beth though, because she forces a smile and her hand is warm on Maggie's chest.

They're like birds, she thinks, as they sit beneath the stars in the grass by a burning barn. Sister birds sitting in their nest together and listening to the ravens and blackbirds sing their nighttime songs. Birds without a worry in the world. Without a need to watch out for predators or having to catch prey.  _Free_ , finally.

"I love you," she whispers.

Beth smiles softly.

"I forgive you."

And then she wakes up.

.

.

She doesn't remember falling asleep, but apparently, she did—or just fell unconscious—because she's no longer crying by the bloody trunk and discarded cardigan. She opens her eyes and finds that Daryl's carrying her. He's picked her up and is walking with her in his arms, like he was with Beth, and he's wearing that same awful expression he was when he came staggering out of the hospital doors. There's a vacancy in this expression though, in the place of tears, and he's staring at the road ahead. There aren't any walkers from what she can see, but any corner they turn could send them walking right into a giant herd.

She taps him.

He ignores her.

She taps him again, harder this time, and he glances down at her with a venomous rage and she shivers briefly, and he tightens his grip on her and carries on walking. Beth whispers a warning in her ear:  _He's gonna walk until he throws the both of you to your deaths . . ._

_He'll kill you._

" _Daryl_ ," she says firmly, thrashing in his hold, "Stop. Put me down."

He does stop but keeps her in his arms. He stares at her with huge spooked eyes, like he hadn't expected her to say anything, as if she's a sack of potatoes who couldn't possibly ever utter a sound. She's the opposite of what it must've been like carrying Beth, thrashing and pushing against his chest, and he looks like he might drop her in horror because of that.

And then she understands.

Ceasing her movements, she leans up and wraps her arms around his shoulders, and he turns to stone. It feels like they stay like that for a while, and Maggie just squeezes tightly until she feels him shaking, and he sinks to the ground on his knees and starts to snivel. Messily, until he's sobbing freely and has his head sagged against her shoulder, and for the perhaps the hundredth time now, she cries along with him.

Sat there in the street—her on his lap—they're weeping, and almost daring the walkers to come around the corner and devour them just like they did  _her_.

Oh god.

 _Just_  like they did her.

 _I don't want to be gutted_.

She's starting to think they don't have a choice in the matter.

.

.

In the end, they don't get eaten by walkers.

Maggie gets up out of his lap and helps him up, the both of them wobbling as they make their way out of the street and back up onto the roofs. They're still clutching each other's hands tightly, like they're afraid one will disappear without the contact, but Daryl hasn't said a word since they found the trunk and cardigan. He left the cardigan there, at least that's what she presumes. He hasn't got it stashed away anywhere, and honestly, she thinks that the idea of picking that up and carrying it around as a memento is slightly . . . morbid.

But she does wish she had  _some_  kind of memento. Just something she can hold and look at every now and then, to remind herself that her sister  _was_  here, and that for a while . . . She  _did_  make it.

They leave the fallen city where both their lives took a turn for the worst and climb up the hill to where the group has pitched camp. Glenn is blue with worry and he throws his arms around Maggie like she's been gone for months, and hangs on like he can't breathe without her.

Daryl watches them with a strange look in his eyes, and eventually, he turns away. It makes Maggie's gut clench, and she stares at the shoulder of Glenn's red shirt with a troubled expression.

"Did you . . . ?" Glenn asks upon pulling away, and the look he gets in return is enough of an answer.

_No . . . We didn't. We didn't find her. We didn't find anything. Anything other than her fucking bloody cardigan!_

She whimpers through her clenched teeth.

 _I don't know where she is_.

He pulls her into his arms again and she lets him and cries into his shoulder quietly. Because even though they don't know for certain where she is, Maggie's pretty sure of what might've happened.

And her insides feel like they're going to burst out themselves and gut  _her_  too.

She catches a glimpse at Rick from over Glenn's shoulder, and his expression suggests that he doesn't expect anyone else to be looking at him. His shoulders are slumped and his eyes are glassy, like they were when he came walking out of the hospital doors first, and his lips are pressed into a flimsy cracked line. Judith is in Carl's arms. Carl, who hasn't stopped crying since he found out the news either, and Maggie doesn't think she's seen Rick look at the baby once since they got back. It's like with Lori, when he seemed to ignore her very existence, though this time Maggie thinks he might not be doing it intentionally. He won't look at Judith, just like she avoids looking at Glenn too much, because when he does he feels that same bone-probing  _guilt_.

And remembrance.

Because Beth Greene was  _here_ , and there's nowhere they can look without remembering that. But she's not here anymore, and chances are . . .

She never will be again.

.

.

They travel for weeks. Onward and onward.

Maggie doesn't really know where they're going, but she thinks she heard Rick talking through the fog that's surrounded her about a place in Virginia.

 _Beth wanted to get him there_ , he said.

 _This was for her_.

So they just keep going. Senselessly. Mechanically. And Maggie doesn't know how to count the passing days anymore. She doubts she ever will again.

Stars don't come out in the sky anymore either. She notices that when they stop deep into the night once and she looks up at the sky. She gets out of the truck and gazes up, but there's nothing but black. No clusters of speckled white or glimmering wonder. Just the abyss, like there's a giant black hole orbiting their world, and they're on the verge of being sucked in. They reach Virginia eventually, but the days are still a hopeless blur, and only a few in the group end up going.

Maggie stays behind, suddenly unable to move from her spot by a blue car with swung-open doors in the middle of the woods. She threw a kind of fit when she saw it, tearing open the trunk and doors, searching desperately across every inch inside. Daryl came and found her when she was trying to stuff herself into the trunk, and pulled her out before she sliced off her head with the flimsy mechanism. He put her down next to the car and then began tearing off seats from inside the car, and for a moment she thought  _he_  might've gone mad too. Not that she really blamed him. He made a fire beside the vehicle and started throwing the ripped up seats into it, and Maggie stared at the blaze with wide frightened eyes. He tossed the pieces in mercilessly and looked like he wanted to throw himself in too for just a moment, but then went back to tearing up the seats.

He sits down opposite her on the other side of the fire and glares at it with eyes blazing with a horrifying sense of hatred. The flames reflect in his eyes and pour across at her, and suddenly she's sobbing messily into her knees.

Carol finds them during this and puts out the fire quickly. She doesn't ask why they were doing what they were doing, and she sits beside them and clasps their hands in her own. Her hands are warm just like the rest of her, but all Maggie feels is cold.

She senses Daryl feels the same.

Carol sits with them for a while, stroking their dusty palms, and Maggie sees then that her eyes are glittering with growing tears too. Beth saved her life in that hospital, and she feels the same guilt they do because she couldn't return the gesture. Beth was her friend, one of her closest ones, and she feels she failed her. She couldn't  _save_  her baby sister, and Maggie thinks she should hate her for it. But with that logic, she would have to hate  _everyone_  in the group,  _and_  herself.

She thinks that maybe she already does.

.

.

Like things couldn't get any worse, Rick and the others come back from Richmond with even more sorrow on their shoulders than they left with.

They lost Tyreese, Glenn says, and Sasha  _screams_  upon finding out.

As they're burying him—something they couldn't do for  _Beth_ , Maggie thinks bitterly—they all shovel a piece of soil into the hole as a type of paying their respects, and she spades a huge chunk in. The brown specks fall onto the white cloth covering Tyreese, and Gabriel's words chanting biblical scriptures wash over her ears like waves. She steps away from the grave and passes Daryl the shovel, who does the same with the dirt but almost drops the spade with his shaking hands. He leaves it standing in the dirt and walks away deep into the willow trees, leaving Rick to tie the wooden cross and engrave Tyreese's name into it alone.

Before they leave, they place his tattered woolly hat on the top, then walk away from the tainted area forever.

 _Forever_. A word she once saw with only positive connotations, now nothing but pain and corruption. Forever. Forever. She's gone  _forever_.

.

.

Sasha's joined their misery parade, and she, Maggie and Daryl often split off from the group to go wallow in their own grief.

Apparently, it's been three weeks since they left Atlanta. That's what she heard Rick tell Daryl, but the days don't feel like separate things anymore. The transition between day and night just feels like a passing rainfall now, only it would if it actually rained anymore. It's just hot,  _all_ the  _time_ , burning into her flesh and coating her with a sickly sweat. Weeks since that day and still Daryl's barely said a word, not even to her, and he avoids them all as much as possible.

He wanders off alone more than her and Sasha, and sometimes when he's gone for long periods of time, she thinks he might've finally done what the both of them seem too afraid to do . . .

She wonders if he's thrown himself down a ravine, fed himself to walkers, torn his throat out with his own bare hands, or just laid down in the dirt and stopped. Gave into the misery and let it swallow him like a monster. She'd do the same if he did, but he always comes back, and more light fades from his eyes every time he does.

Carol follows him one time, and he comes back with something new strapped to his belt.

A knife.

A dainty knife with a brown sheath, small and delicate. It hangs at his hip noisily, and Maggie doesn't have to think twice about who that knife once belonged to.

It's Beth's.

It's Beth's knife, and he has it on his hip next to his own like a piece of her he's still carrying, and she feels a sting of bitterness at the thought of Carol giving it to him, because she  _must_  have. Where else would he have gotten it if she hadn't? She knows she's far less deserving, but it hurts that Carol gave it to  _him_  and not  _her_ , because she's her  _sister_ , and he's . . .

 _He's_.

He loves her.

Maybe not  _more_  than Maggie, but definitely more than she can understand. He loves her in a way she's never seen anyone love someone before. Not like Maggie loves her, or like Rick loves her, or even how Glenn loves  _Maggie_. He just loves her. Like he's got all the love in the world, and he chooses to pour it all onto her, but not even intentionally. He loves her so much it's difficult to comprehend.

He wasn't lying when he told her she was his friend.

She was.

But maybe that's just what started it.

She showed him her way and he fell in love with it. Not necessarily  _her_ —although it seems to Maggie that he did as well—but the  _idea_  she presented to him. He fell in love with the way she saw the world. And the way she saw  _him_. Like he could do anything.  _Be_  anything. He saw what she saw when she looked at him and wanted to be that person, so he tried to do it. Tried to be that man she saw that protected everyone and could  _save_  everyone. He tried so much harder than anyone.

But he still couldn't save  _her_ , and now she's gone.

Along with that illusion built which shattered the very second the bullet fired.

.

.

Gabriel tries to talk to her about it one day. Beth and her daddy. He says he's there if she ever needs to talk to him, or God, but she doesn't think she believes in God anymore. So she tells him, and it shuts him right up.

He doesn't talk to her about it again.

Glenn thinks they can only make it together, and he tells her not to give up fighting.

He tells her to fight, that she can get through it, because that's who she is.

 _It's who you are_.

Maggie sees Daryl flinch at that, but she doesn't know why. Soon after, he mumbles Abraham something, then disappears into the trees again, and honestly, she's surprised he's still even  _talking_  to him after what he did.  _What he fucking did_. He talks to the others—well, barely—but he won't utter a word to her. She doesn't know why, and she wants to, but she doesn't follow him. He never follows her when she goes off on her own. It's an unspoken agreement they have. But she still wants to understand.

Carl gives her a music box.

Wind-up, bright yellow, and with a little ballerina inside. She feels a smile tugging at her lips for the first time in weeks because of the gift, and he squeezes her hand tightly as the walk after passing it to her.

"It used to play music," he says.

"It's broken."

She almost laughs.

Daryl comes back after a while and when he does, it starts to rain. His cheeks are uncannily damp  _before_  the shower, she notices, but any evidence of it is washed away with the sudden rainfall.

It pours down and soaks them all from head to toe.

She and Beth used to love the rain whenever it came down on the farm, and their elated joy from back then is mirrored through nearly everyone's jubilant reactions in the group. Rick closes his eyes and lifts up his hands to catch some of the droplets, and Rosita and Tara lay down to relish in the pleasantness. Maggie doesn't though, couldn't even if she tried. She just stands there and lets it wash everything away, and she casts a glance at Daryl, who's doing exactly the same.

They'd let it wash  _them_  away if it could.

 _I forgive you_.

But she's only a dream.


	6. When are you coming home back to me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Love, when are you coming home back to me?  
> Is this the ending of our beginning?  
> Am I born into this world not to love?  
> Do I have to wait in living or death?  
> When will I have a substitute like you?  
> My biggest question is...  
> Where are you now?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This is the last official chapter. The final-final one is the epilogue, but this here is the ending. If you want to find out what happens after, feel free to go read [Running Blind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4475495/chapters/10172873), which follows Beth as opposed to Maggie. And if you have read that, then I hope this prequel (sort of) gives you some more insight into what's happening.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this fic and I also hope that the ending is satisfying for you (remember there is an epilogue).
> 
> Thank you so much for all the feedback I've received for this, and without further ado... Enjoy.

Things change after that.

Changes aren't always good, but they aren't always bad. She's not sure exactly when the change happened, but she thinks it might have been around the time they watched  _that_  sunrise.

The rainfall turns into a storm so they take refuge in a barn, and that next morning, Maggie takes Sasha to watch the sunrise.

She thought about taking Daryl too, but he'd been up all night working on  _that_.

He fixed the music box.

She'd crawled over to him and commented how Tyreese had lived tough, and  _then_  he'd gone and said . . .  _that_.

 _So was she_.

She'd almost bit through her tongue when he said it.

 _She didn't know it, but she was_.

He'd handed the music box over to her then, claiming that it just had some grit in the gearbox, and she smiled a genuine smile.

 _Rest_ , she told him, and he laid himself down in the hay and did. The straw smelled like Beth. At least it did to Maggie. She always rolled around in it too much, so it clung to her like a second skin. That scent. Warm and woodsy.

She sits with Sasha after that, watching the gentle morning light creep up from over the mountains and bathe them with its gold pinkish light, and she opens the music box to wind it up. Maybe it can play. Maybe it's not broken anymore. But turns out it's not as fixed as Daryl thought it was, and no music erupts from the contraption.

The little ballerina stays statue-like, and Maggie camouflages her dissatisfied whine as a breathless laugh, which Sasha joins in with.

A man approaches them then.  _Aaron_. And he leads them towards a better life where they don't have to wake up each morning and not want to get up. There's a place just before Washington.  _Alexandria_. And it's safe. It's safe for them. They can  _live_  there. They don't have to run anymore. She thinks it's cruel that the people that deserved the place were the ones who didn't make it, but slowly, it starts to get easier for Maggie to get out of bed every morning. She goes to sleep to generally peaceful dreams of Beth, sometimes the odd horrific nightmare waking her in cold sweat, and she becomes the Safe Zone's leader, Deanna's, right-hand woman.

Beth wants her to do it.

That's what keeps her going. Keeps her breathing. Much like fear used to.

She sees her face every night, and each time she smiles, and Maggie feels her heart both mending and re-breaking at the same time. Sometimes it's easier, but then sometimes it's so hard she wants to die even more than at the start.

.

.

It's only a few weeks later that she discovers she's pregnant.

She's only just started sleeping with Glenn again, surrendering to his gentle touches and loving embrace, and she stares at the Safe Zone's doctor with horror at the discovery. Her name's Denise. The other doctor died when Rick started getting involved with his wife. Not a very good move on his part honestly, she thinks.

Denise is a psychiatrist. She wanted to be a doctor but she never made it that far, but Maggie still thinks she's fit to fill that position. And now, she's just told her . . .

She's pregnant.

She doesn't tell Glenn right away. Goes out for a walk and sits by one of the east walls. She pulls her knees up to her chest and tries to listen for anything shifting deep inside her, though she knows she's nowhere near far enough along to be able to hear anything. But still, there's a life inside her. Something so bright and wonderful and  _alive_. It's growing deep in the warmth of her womb and proving that  _she's_  alive too. She's so alive, this is the pinnacle of alive, and she feels her shoulders quivering. Because she remembers Lori, what happened to her, and even though it's the height of all life . . . She's terrified.

She hears footsteps and quickly looks up.

It's Daryl.

He's carrying a dead bedraggled possum, dripping blood and leaking all down the hand he's carrying it in. He stands towering over her, hair hanging in his eyes and jaw set harshly. She wonders if he'll just carry on walking without a word to her like he always does, but instead he sits. He leans against the wall at her side and sets the dead animal down on the ground, and the wind blows his oily bangs out of his steel eyes.

She's crying. She's only just realised, but her shoulders shake violently and she sniffles.

She hates this. Hates how he's so strong and she's not. But she can't help it.

He doesn't say anything, but he does move. He shifts his arm and winds it around her, the movement slightly awkward, but she doesn't complain. He pulls her into his side carefully and she lets her head fall against his shoulder, and her sobs make him shake along with her.

"I'm pregnant," she whispers, and he goes stiff.

She can't see his face from where she's tucked into his side, but he loosens eventually and breathes a quiet sigh.

"Glenn know yet?"

"No. I just found out."

"Yer scared."

It's not a question. He doesn't do what anyone else would — ask why she's crying. She senses it's because he knows. Lori was important to him as well, maybe even more than she was to her.

Lori was important to everyone.

Lori  _saved_  Beth.

"There are two ways this could end," she says through shaky breaths.

"S'right," he agrees, "Two."

She glances up.

His eyes are dark and simmering with determination.  _Determination_. She wonders why that's there. He knows the two outcomes she's talking about, so why is  _that_  there . . . ?

He thinks she can do it.

He thinks she can come out of it alright.  _With_  the baby; with her  _own_  life. He thinks she's going to be okay. He's determined for her. Determined to do what he can to make that happen.

"I . . . I had to do it for Lori!" she sobs, and thick tears roll down her cheeks at the memory, "I had to . . . And  _she_. . . !"

Cutting into her, pulling the crying lump of flesh out from inside, her screams . . .

"You ain't Lori."

He does. He believes. She wonders why he does, wonders why he . . .

"I got faith in ya," he says, and her heart feels like it's trying to burst out from her chest, "You'll be alright. Just gotta believe  _yourself_."

 _How did you do this to him?_  she thinks desperately.  _How did you give him so much? You were my sister, my_ friend _, and yet . . . I don't see the things he does! I don't understand how he can . . ._

_What did you say_

_When he was with you . . . What did he see?_

She stutters, "What if—I—I don't know how . . ."

His eyes soften and fill with that sadness she saw when they were all out in the wilderness. The void he couldn't fill. Before they found this place. This place never filled that void for him, she sees now. Maybe it never filled the void for her either.

"I wish she was here."

His eyelids slide closed.

"Me too."

.

.

She decides to write a letter.

She told Glenn about her pregnancy, and he was thrilled. She's still frightened, but his reaction makes it a little easier. It's been a few weeks since then and so much has happened.

They almost lost the Safe Zone. Walkers came and they almost died. It was almost the same as the prison. But this time they fought and took back what was theirs. They won. And Glenn came back alive in the end. For a while, she thought he was dead. But he wasn't. He was fine. He  _is_ fine.

They're all fine.

So it's in light of that, that she decides to write a letter.

To  _her_.

She knows she won't ever get the chance to read it. No one will. She plans to burn or tear it after she's written it, but she still wants to write it. Because even if no one reads it . . . Even if it inevitably turns to dust . . . Someone should know.

Beth should know.

She picks up a pen and a piece of paper and writes. Her sadness. Her feelings. Her guilt. And her  _love_. She pours the love in her broken heart onto the paper in scrawls of ink, and before she knows it, she's crying. All she does is cry. It's become like breathing to her. She's  _bucketing_  her heart into the letter and she wonders if there'll be any of it left after she's done. She doesn't know if there was anything left to begin with.

She doesn't know if it matters if you have a heart or not anymore in this world.

It turns out longer than she intended, but at the same time, so short. She signs it with her name and stares at the smudged ink, Beth's name at the top, huge and blaring. Staring at it, she reaches for the scissors on the table and lifts them to her hair. And suddenly she's cutting. Chopping, wildly, cutting at the ends, making the long strands she's spent ages growing fall until her hair is shorter than it was at the start of the turn.

She puts down the scissors and swallows thickly, not wanting to look in the mirror to see what she's done. She doesn't care what it looks like. It doesn't matter. She just had to get rid of it, had to stop it from getting in her way, had to . . .

She feels empty now, hollowed out, and she reaches for the letter to tear it into pieces . . . when she suddenly keels over and screams with pain.

Her stomach  _burns_ , the life growing inside of her clawing and screeching, and she howls against the table she's fallen next to wildly.

Glenn comes rushing in, frantically asking what's wrong, but all she can do is cry. She's got the letter folded and clutched in her hand, and she still has it when she dizzily falls unconscious against him. Beth's singing soothes her ears and she passes out with a smile on her face, despite the pain in her lower abdomen, and she holds the crumpled letter close to her heart, her chopped off strands of hair pooling around her legs where she's fallen in a crumple.

.

.

Maggie's condition is worse than all of them originally expected, and she's far beyond Denise's medical abilities.

She places her palms over her belly and feels for something from within, but there's nothing. Just nothing. Not a single bud.  _Babe, it'll grow_. But plants can't grow without the sun.

Too much water drowns them.

She starts to panic. Denise and Glenn panic too, until Daryl suggests something they can't refuse to at least  _consider_. . .

Grady.

There was a doctor there, hiding behind the barricade of police officers, and surely if they asked . . . he'd help?  _We can always drag him here by his coat_ , Daryl growls, but Maggie doesn't know what going back there will do to Daryl. Will it help him? Give him an ounce of closure and help ease his troubled soul? Or will it make everything they'd been trying to build even worse?

She wonders if he ever even  _got_  any better.

They agree to go out and try to bring him here though. Daryl, Aaron, Rosita, and Abraham. They're set to leave almost immediately, but Maggie stops Rosita before she leaves the medical ward, and pushes the envelope with Beth's name on into her hands.

"Please . . ." she chokes, overcome with emptiness.

But  _hope_  as well.

". . . It's for Beth."

Rosita's expression looks pained at her whispered words, but Maggie's so desperate she'll do  _anything_  to get her to take it. She  _has_  to take it. She has to. She'd ask Daryl but she doesn't know what it'd do to him, and she doesn't want him to ever have to go near that bloody empty trunk again. She doesn't trust Abraham, and Aaron never even saw Beth. So Rosita is her only hope. Her last chance.

Leaving it  _there_  is so much better than just burning or tearing it.

"I wrote it for her . . ." she whimpers, "Please, leave it where he left her. You  _have_  to leave it there. It's all I can . . .  _Please_."

Taking the envelope, Rosita squeezes her hands and nods, and she knows she can trust that she'll do it. She will. She'll deliver it to the place Beth was last known to be—Abraham will show her that at least—and then it can finally start to get better.

They leave and Maggie lays in the bed with a heavy heart.

The life growing inside her is silent—painfully so—and she feels the sting of tears pricking her eyes yet again. She wants to cry, wants to so bad, but they don't come out this time. She really is empty after all.

She rests her head back against the propped up pillows and closes her eyes.

Daryl came to say goodbye after Rosita left, and she gave him a weakly smile. The determination was there again in his eyes, despite what's happening to her, and it makes her wonder.

Could there still be a chance?

Was it just blind hopeful naiveté? Or was it something with the power to warp fate?

She wonders.

"Beth . . ." she whispers with a dry sob, "Beth, sweetie . . ."

 _I wish I could've saved you_.

 _I tried to._   _But maybe someone else can. Wherever you are, if you're up in the clouds like Daddy used to say . . . I hope someone else can save you. It was supposed to be me, but we'll have to wait 'til_ I _can see you again. All we ever do is wait._

_Maybe Daryl will see you up there. He's the one with wings, after all._

She falls purposely into the abyss of dreams and goes running into Beth's open arms, and this time her dreams are filled with sweet songs, and tender starlight twinkling from vast fields of golden corn.

_Where are you, gentle bird?_

_Where are you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue also contains the contents of Maggie's letter, but if you want to know what was written in it now, see [chapter 39](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4475495/chapters/17143108) of [Running Blind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4475495/chapters/10172873).


	7. Epilogue & Maggie's letter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Where are you?"
> 
> For the first time... a girl opens her mouth to answer.

It's dark when she wakes up, and she's not sure how long she's been sleeping.

She's dazed. Muddled. Bewildered. And her head feels light. She tilts her head in the pillow and stares at the drawn curtains, the bedside table, and the glass of water with dissolved pills fizzing at the bottom. Her stomach doesn't hurt anymore, but she doesn't know if that's a good or bad sign. She still feels empty. Emptied of tears  _and_  heart.

But then she feels a movement.

A breeze blows in through the open window behind the curtain, making it sway gently and allow small streams of yellow light to flow in like sunshine water. The light ghosts her cheeks and makes her feel warm, for the first time in so long, and she blinks slowly.

Sounds come from the doorway, small shuffling noises, and she tilts her head that way to see who's come to visit her this time.

It's a girl.

A girl she's never seen before at the Zone.

Through her somewhat fuzzy vision, Maggie can pick out golden yellow clumps of hair hanging from her head, but her face is a blur. She's standing in the doorway with a faded checked plaid on, her lean but powerful limbs standing out of the tight grey jeans that are hugging her legs. She looks like a deer, she thinks. What an odd thought.

Maggie's vision clears slowly, but it still has an odd dream-like quality to it, so she assumes that's just what it is.

It's basically confirmed to be a dream when the girl opens her mouth to speak.

". . . Maggie?" she calls, and her voice is soft yet hard like strengthened steel.

She sounds like  _her_ , Maggie thinks with a laugh. That gentle singsong voice that rises with the second syllable in questioning. But at the same time, it also  _doesn't_  sound like her. This girl's voice is lower. Deeper. Gritty. It sounds hardened. It's like she's been dragged through a fire and her vocals got messed up in the process. A girl of gold, and limbs, and flames. But she still sounds so much like  _her_.

It's not unusual for Maggie to hear Beth's voice in the place of others'.

The girl calls her name again, and Maggie wonders what the stranger wants with her.

She rubs her sticky eyes and sits up. She blinks several times to fully wipe the haze over her irises away, and her lips part with disbelief as the girl's face finally comes into focus.

There's a smile on her bruised and scarred face, and splatters of dry blood paint her cheeks. Golden strands dance in the breeze blowing in from the windows, and Maggie's heart swells at the glittering of her glassy blue eyes. Her neck and jaw are awfully sharp for a girl, and her hair's fastened back in an unkempt ponytail . . . with that messy braid  _she_  didn't have at the hospital, swinging at the back like a cord of radiance.

Maggie's heart feels like it's caught in her throat, and the girl smiles wider. The streams of light from the curtains travel across the room and illuminate her blood-stained cheeks, and she remains standing there in the doorway like a ghost.

Maybe she is a ghost. That's it. But ghosts don't look  _that_  real.

Daddy never did.

They continue staring at one another. Her and the stranger that looks  _so_  much like her sister . . . until Maggie smiles too. And the warm breeze blows over her clammy neck and fills her with a sudden warmth. A healthy warmth. Everything filled with light and glitter. There's a dirty cloth tied around the girl's head ineptly, and Maggie reaches out a hand towards her in the doorway. The girl tilts her head, smile still in place, and slowly moves to come towards her because of the beckoning . . .

And Maggie hears the fragments of her heart singing, as she comes closer.

.

.

_**BETH** ,_

_It's me. Maggie. I know you're never going to get the chance to read this, and even if you could, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. I messed up. I did. I messed up so badly, and it's because of that that this happened to you. And I wanted to write this because even though you won't ever read it, I wanted you to know that I'm sorry._

_I am. I'm so, so sorry._

_After I left you by the bus at the prison, I went back with Glenn. When I saw that you weren't there, I got off and went to look for you, but I couldn't find you. I looked and I looked and I LOOKED, but you weren't there._

_So I thought you must be dead too._

_But then we found Daryl, and he told me you'd got out, that you weren't dead, and a tiny part of me started to believe again. But despite knowing that, I still got in the truck with Abraham and headed to D.C. Because I made him a promise, and we Greenes don't go back on our promises, do we? I had a job to do so I did it, but that doesn't excuse the way I treated you. Not in a million years. And then when I thought I'd found you again and had the chance to tell you all this instead of writing it down like some pathetic poet . . . You were dead._

_Only for real that time._

_Do you remember those nights we used to spend lying on the hill back on the farm? We'd lie there beneath the stars and stare up at them, like they were the best kinds of wonders we'd ever see. I've been thinking about that a lot, and I probably will for the rest of my life, because those stars weren't the greatest wonders I'd ever seen . . . And do you know what was?_

_You._

_It was you, Beth. You were, and still are, the best thing about my life, and I'm sorry that I didn't realise it sooner, because if I had I would've told you. There's so many things I would've told you if I'd known I'd have to wake up one day with you not here._

_I wish you were still here. I wish you were here all the time, and it hurts so bad because it's MY fault that you're not, and no amount of times I say I'm sorry isn't going to change that. So I'll end on this note, like a pathetic, sorry poet, and totally not because I'm worried if I don't stop soon, I won't ever be able to . . ._

_I love you._

_I love you and I'm so sorry I let this happen to you. I hope you can forgive me. And if we're lucky, maybe we'll meet again someday. Maybe we all will. You, me, Daddy, my mom and your mom, Shawn, Patricia, Otis, Jimmy . . . Maybe we'll all see each other again someday. I hope so, because I want to say all this to you, but right now I can't, so this letter will have to do._

_I believe in you, Bethy. I'm sorry that it took me so long, and I'm sorry that I wasn't the sister you deserved, but I do. I believe. So this is where I should say goodbye, because I didn't get the chance to say goodbye in real life. I never would've left you there if I had the choice, but I didn't, and now what's done is done. And I'm the one who has to live with that. But I won't say goodbye, because that feels too final to me._

_Instead, I'll say goodnight. That feels more right. Less harsh. Sort of gentle . . . Like morning can still come._

_Goodnight, Beth Greene._    
 _Goodnight and joy be with you, always._

_**MAGGIE**._

**End**


End file.
